Privacy and surveillance on social media: Awareness and tendencies of users in Turkiye


Creative Commons License

Avcı Ö., Şen O., Cengiz M. F.

OBSERVATORIO, cilt.19, sa.4, ss.89-110, 2025 (Scopus)

  • Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
  • Cilt numarası: 19 Sayı: 4
  • Basım Tarihi: 2025
  • Doi Numarası: 10.15847/obsobs19420252650
  • Dergi Adı: OBSERVATORIO
  • Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: Scopus, Directory of Open Access Journals, DIALNET
  • Sayfa Sayıları: ss.89-110
  • Açık Arşiv Koleksiyonu: AVESİS Açık Erişim Koleksiyonu
  • Ondokuz Mayıs Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet

Özet

The rapid spread of digitalization has made individuals' personal data more accessible which in turn makes privacy violations and surveillance processes more prominent. The main purpose of this paper is to assess social media users' privacy and surveillance awareness, their tendency to disclose personal information,  and  to  discuss  the  effects  of  these  processes  at  the  individual  and  social  level.  A quantitative research design was employed. Data was collected from 800 participants through online and face-to-face surveys. Participants' social media usage habits and their attitudes toward privacy and confidentiality  on  social  media  were  analyzed.  The  findings  revealed  that  women  have  a  higher awareness  of  surveillance  and  privacy  violations,  single  individualshave  a  greater  tendency  toward privacy disclosure and privacy violation, and surveillance awareness decreases as the duration of social media usage increases. The results also indicate that participants have low awareness of surveillance and privacy violations and tend to disclose their personal information. This suggests that social media users  should  better  understand  potential  privacy  threats  and  implement  higher  caution  and responsibility when sharing personal information